Total schools spending - down 1%

In total, Welsh Government figures show the total amount of money schools will have to spend will be £2,496m in 2015-16 – a decrease of 1% on the previous year.

Dr Philip Dixon, director of education union ATL Cymru, said: “This is sad and bad news for the children of Wales.

“Obviously the Westminster austerity agenda is driving some of this reduction in funding, but we must never forget that the Welsh Government had been under-funding Welsh pupils compared to their English counterparts for well over a decade.

“Our children are our future. If we short-change them then we are all impoverished. Spending on education should not just be protected, it should be increased.”

Comparisons with England

But year-on-year funding comparisons were stopped by the Welsh Government in 2012, when statisticians blamed the “changing education policy landscape” and emergence of academies in England for preventing robust analysis.

The Welsh Government's response

A spokeswoman for the Welsh Government said: “Let us be clear about one thing, we have met our commitment to increase funding for Welsh schools by 1% above the money we receive from Westminster.

“This has meant an additional £106m has been made available for Welsh schools over the course of this Assembly term. Local authorities have also played their part and many have exceeded the required level of protection over the Assembly term.

“We are extremely proud that through the tough times the Welsh Government has been there to shelter schools from the worst of the cuts.

“On top of this we have made available significant additional funding for schools through for example the Pupil Deprivation Grant, which is entirely in addition to the protection funding for 2015-16.

“We have been completely transparent about the very challenging financial position that we’re facing. By 2015-16, the Welsh budget will be nearly £1.7bn less than it was in 2010-11 as a result of the UK Government’s cuts. Nevertheless, our commitment to schools funding remains firm.”